“Will you give me a ride on your dad’s bike again? I loved it.”
Air catches in my throat. “You knew it was his? Not just the same model Harley, but his?”
“Yeah. I’d recognize it anywhere. You used to idolize it.” Her eager smile softens. “I’m glad you have it.”
“It was hard to track down.”
There’s a beat of quiet where we’re both in our heads.
“I’m sorry you were alone for so long. I wish you never had to leave here.” She pulls her hair out of her face and glances at her lap. “I missed you every day.”
“I wasn’t always alone,” I admit, throat constricted from the pain in her tone. “For a long time, it felt like all I had was me.” My life has gone so wrong, but not every second of it was bad. “The foster system wasn’t good to me, it was like my past followed me like a bad smell.” My grip flexes on the wheel. “Most of the families were afraid of me.”
“Why?”
“I was so angry all the time. I fought anyone I could.” I clench my teeth, then relax when she reaches out to take my hand. “It wasn’t until I was fifteen that the DuPonts took me in after I’d been bounced around so much. Then things finally started turning around.”
“They were good to you?”
“Yeah. Kind of socialite snobs, but th
ey had an older son. Eventually I found he was in my corner, and with him, there were others.”
“I’m in your corner,” Maisy says mildly, squeezing my hand.
I grip her small hand in mine. “I know that now. Colton, my foster brother, had friends. They brought me into their circle and treated me like family. Honestly, after so many years of what I went through, I was against it at first. In the system you learn fast that nothing belongs to you and no one really wants you.”
Her fingers tighten around mine. “Fox…”
My shoulder lifts in a shrug. “That’s the system. These guys, though, they cracked through my fuck you shell before I realized that they’d accepted me as one of them.”
“Are they who you were with at the holiday market last year?”
I blink. “What?”
Last year Wren, Colton, Levi, and Jude had rolled into town out of the blue around the holidays. I thought the Crows had come for me, but Wren said it was strictly business and I understood the lethal hardness to his eyes. His sister. He’d been on the crusade since she died, searching for her fucked up teacher that preyed on her not long after I started living with the DuPonts. We met up briefly at the local holiday market downtown, but I only saw them for a few minutes before they left in a rush when they finally found the bastard.
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“I was there with my friend Thea.” A complicated expression contorts her beautiful features. “That day was pretty crazy, but before that I was looking for her and saw you with those guys. It was the first time I’d seen you smile genuinely since the last time I saw you, before…”
She doesn’t have to finish, I catch her meaning. I haven’t smiled much since returning to Ridgeview. It seems I only do when it has to do with her.
Curiosity brims in her gaze as she studies me. I can sense her hunger to learn more about what my life has been like in the time we’ve been apart. When the connection between people is as deep as ours was, there’s this sense of possessiveness that’s hard to kick. I know I’ve felt it around her, too.
It’s not until we’re almost at my warehouse that I realize I wasn’t on guard with her, driving on autopilot. That more than anything else tells me I’m ready to trust her again, when I rarely let anyone in. The patched up wall around my heart finally crumbles.
“I want to show you something.”
“Okay.”
I take the turn off for my place. She’s the first person in town I’ve brought here. Once I pull in and park the Charger in the garage, she gets out.
Vulnerability burns in me as I follow her around my workspace while she takes in my abstract pieces.
“This is where you live.”
“Yes.”